Hi all, after 2 years being out of the game because of my accident I've recently started getting back into the tournament scene and could use some help before I head to vegas.I've been to 2 solo tournaments with less then impressive results. First one I ranked 12 out of 26 and the other I got obliterated and ended at 62 out of 65. Problems I'm having is with marines drop pod assault turn one, scoring enough maelstrom points, bike stars, necrons and tau. From what I'm seeing on the table seems to be absolutely no vehicles unless it's a knight or free rhinos for marines battle company. Lots of bike stars or space wolfs fenris wolf spam with librarians, genestealer cults, necrons and crazy amount of firepower from tau list.

Here is the new list I would like feedback on please (1850 ITC format):HQ:Farseer Jetbike, Witchblade Farseer Jetbike, Witchblade

Here are my thoughts on those problems when I am list building and playing:

Marine drop pods:The issues I see a lot of people (myself included) having against drop pod marines is that they don't want anything dying. When I look at an enemy army I always try to make a mental note of the strengths and weaknesses and when making decisions, particularly when it comes to deployment, decision to go first or second, and the placement of objectives, try to considers these.

When it comes to drop pod marines these are the strengths and weaknesses I consider and what I do to mitigate them:Strengths:

Drop pods make it impossible to avoid their fire power. They will do damage when they drop in.

Weaknesses:

No mobility after the drop

Maximum of half the army arrives in one turn

Tactics against them:

Let them have first turn, so I don't waste a turn shooting at nothing. If they do have a significant portion of their army that is not in pods I take first turn, but if I think it is likely that I am going to have nothing to shoot at first turn I give it to them. Most of the time they want to take first turn too if they win the roll off.

Choose what I am going to let them kill when they drop in. I do this generally in two different ways. One, by deployment, hard to explain exactly how this is done as it varies depending on terrain but I generally do it by deploying a reasonably valuable unit in a position where a few drop pods can land around it, and I deploy the rest of my army in such a position that there is not much room for drop pods. Two by talking to my opponent, I often try to tell him of my last game how unit X went on a rampage and killed lots or scored lots of objectives. I do know that some people frown on this sort of thing, and it is definitely not for friendly games but you were talking about tournaments.

Objective placement. When I am playing against pods, I try to place all of my objectives outside of my own deployment zone and then I deploy as far away from them as possible. That way once the marines have landed and killed my bait unit, I can move my entire army to the other side of the board, , where all of objectives are and he is stuck walking his marines across the table. Alternatively he drops down on the objectives, in which case he does very little damage on the turn he drops and I am set up for a shooting gallery. Eldar's biggest strength is it's mobility closely followed by the amount of firepower we can put out. Consider those strengths in everything from deployment to objective placement to each game turn.

One thing I don't often do, which is something I see a lot of other players do is leave a large portion of my army in reserves. To me that is playing into the drop pod players hands. He is still going to kill something the turn he drops, and I have a lot less of my army to then capitalize on the fact that he has only a few units sitting most likely not in cover in my deployment zone. The exception to this comes with very valuable units that are unlikely to be saved with bait units or screen units, warp hunters come to mind here.

Death Stars:My first thoughts when I see a death star I am playing against is what happens if I just let them do their thing? Death stars biggest strengths in general is that it is very difficult to kill them, so what happens if I don't even try. Can I outscore them? Can I feed them some bait units to slow them down? I very carefully consider what damage they will do if left alone, and whether or not it will be worth attacking them at all. I also vary carefully consider the placement of my units to make it as hard for them as possible to get to the units they actually want to kill. Having a death star kill a wraithknight in a couple of turns, or a 3 man jetbike unit in a turn probably means it is notting getting it's points worth and you are winning the game.

Tau FirepowerI am not able to offer too much advise on this problem as I have never encountered it before. I have generally found that Eldar have superior firepower to the Tau and are more maneuverable. What Tau units in particular are you having problems with? Stormsurges? Riptides? Crisis in large groups?

OthersI have no personal experience playing against a genestealer cult so I am not able to offer too much advise there.

Necrons have great survive-ability but can't compete with us on fire power or mobility. I consider the following things when playing necrons:

Stay more than 30 inches away if possible. 6inch move + 24inch range on most of their weapons. This mostly applies to things like scatter bikes and other things that have 36inch range. I often ensure I am more than 30 inches from all bar a unit or two and place high priority on killing or ensuring that those units that are in range are significantly depleted.

Target priority - Because necrons are so durable it is very important that you pick the targets that are the biggest threat. I generally find things that move fast are my highest priority targets as eliminating them early lets me get the most out of my own mobility.

General Tactics

Be prepared to sacrifice strong expensive units such as wraithknights, warp hunters, wraithguard in serpents. These units are very scary but on their own do not win the game for you. Your 5 or 6 groups of 3 jetbikes or your 3 squads of warp spiders are what will actually win the majority of games for you. The strength of units like wraithknights and warp hunters is that the present a target that the opponent must deal with, and it will often take their whole army an entire turn or more to deal with. This leaves the mobile and still hard hitting units like jetbikes and warp spiders etc to actually win the game for you.

One of the hardest decisions I find I have to make is how to use my scatter bike units. I sometime find it hard to sacrifice the unit to capture an objective. I am still not sure of what the correct decision is in these cases as the bikes do provide very valuable firepower but objectives win games. My advice here would be to carefully consider the choice each time and make a decision based on the current game situation.

Starting thoughts, both lists look pretty good overall and will easily be able to win games. The advice I am offering is only for small tweaks based on my experience with similar lists.

What are the rangers achieving? The will sit on an objective all game, generally a backfield objective but they are unable to move very far, and are unable to make a meaningful contribution to the firepower. I would personally change the two groups of 4 scatter bikes to groups of three, remove the rangers and use some of those points to add a third group of 3 scatter bikes.

Why the dark reapers? Dark reapers are not bad units and in most other codicies would be auto includes, but for eldar I find them too static and they don't offer much firepower that is not found better on other platforms. I would personally include an aspect host of warp spiders instead. Some of the points left over from removing the rangers could be used here.

What is the void shield generator achieving? They are good protection against an alpha strike yes, but again are too static. Void shield generators are great for armies that want to castle up, but I have found that I really want my eldar to be as mobile as possible. Particularly if the tournament missions I am playing have any maelstrom missions or similar. I find the points are better spent on more units, meaning more capability to deal with losses from an alpha strike anyway.

2 Farseers in the first list and the seer council in the second list. There is a several great articles on here written by TheMattler (all great articles btw) and at the end of each of them he touches on how psychic powers in 40k are greatly over costed for what they do, particularly with the 7th edition changes to psychic powers. He touches on how even assuming a farseer casts guide or prescience every turn without fail, on a unit of jetbikes you are probably just better spending the 115 points on more jetbikes. It may be benificial if you have large groups of jetbikes, greater than 5, but doing that has its own downsides.

To me the second farseer in your first list is a waste of points, and would be better spent on more scatter bikes, more hornets or other things like that. Yes farseers are great and no matter what we generally have to bring at least 1 HQ and for that a farseer is a great choice but I find that any more than that, there are far better things that you could spend your points on. I generally find that unless you are willing to fully commit your army to the psychic phase it is not worth it. You will still be pretty much useless against psychic specific armies like demons or Grey Knights with two farseers and against non psychic armies 2 farseers will not offer too much of an improvement over 1.

As far as the seer council goes in your second list, I feel it goes the same way. You are not really fully committing to it with only 5 warlocks, and as such I feel that there could be a much better way to spend the points. What is your plan for the seer council in game? How will you use it? Will you try to get it in melee? Will you sit there casting ranged psychic powers? How will you deal with losses? The main constraints of it I see are that you are only allowed to cast each power once with the unit, so no more than 1 shriek and the fact that as soon as you lose a warlock you lose a psychic power that they know. While the seer council is cool, I find it very difficult to find a role for it on the table.

War walkers. To me they are not as good as scatter bikes. They are slightly more expensive per scatter laser (30 points per scatter laser rather than 27) and they are not as mobile. The advantages they do offer is the ability to scout, more importantly the ability to outflank, which is not to be under estimated. Personally though I prefer the constant mobility of the jetbikes than the one off outflank from the war walkers. Also see the comparison between war walkers, vypers and hornets written by theMattler http://thewarmaster.com/index.php?topic=5849.0.

As an example this is the list I plan on using at an upcoming ITC style event:

Wow thanks for the response in depth! You have provided me much to contemplate on. First off I agree with the reapers and have exchanged them for warp spiders. Thinking back on those loses with regard to the reapers, yes they had decent long range fire power but when I found my position compromised and moved the bulk of my army to counter I usually had to sacrifice the reapers because like you said they arn't mobile and fitting with the rest of the force. Same goes with the sniper, really I had 60 points and thought an infiltrating unit with a good cover save could be useful. Also agree with you on the warwalkers after looking at that article and what you said and having objective secure on other group of scatter bikes seems more useful. I've crafted up a new list but still am deciding if I should get rid of the shield and the extra farseer yet. Second farseer is there to help make sure I get the powers I want that I like to use but I do agree with your take on my use of them and the council in the previous list so I might axe him in the end. I kind of feel the shield is my throw away unit, so far in my practice games with the list the shield is first thing to go (because they have to take it down to get at what they want) but then most of the time they don't have enough firepower to take down the knight or warp hunter. After it's done it's job and helped me survive the first turn the army moves out as needed with a unit or 2 staying in the shield if it's around and it works with what I'm trying to accomplish so it might stick around.

Here's the new list so far with possibility of axing 2 farseer:HQ:Farseer skyrunnerFarseerskyrunner

Keep the 2nd farseer to give you dice to use and more chance of getting the powers you want. Skatach wise I find the deathshroud versio great, especially if you can get jinx on a warlock. Nothing funnier than watching 15 Khorne Bezerkers pile out of a drop pod then next turn you drop the knight next to them, cast jinx making them armour 4 then mop them up on 2's.